Africa is my fovourite place, so far it is definitely my favourite place. I’ve been asked so many times where Botswana is, I thought this would explain.

The wildlife here is just amazing, so many elephants!

Zebras looking out for eachother. If they stand like this they can keep watch in all directions

Giraffes having a rumble

Butter wouldn’t melt..!

Warthogs often kneel down to eat

Colourful bee eaters and sun birds, eagles, vultures, waders… too many to list. It’s so dificult to choose, but I just had to show you this vereaux eagle owl with it’s chick.

We were lucky enough to see some of the rarer animals too. Don’t want to get too close to this honey badger with his fearsome reputation.

Wild dogs resting in the shade

The wildlife is mostly uninterested in people unless they get too close. They’re so used to us, but we did manage to annoy an elephant or two. They are such gentle giants and they do give fair warning. This first one is just a young male with a lot of attitude

He may be young but is a force to be reckoned with because of his size.

This guy meant business though, definitely time to go.

Just a thought, I haven’t included cats, just to put that right this is a leopard taken in the last light of the day.

I promised to make a post showing a painting in progress, What better then a goshawk? I really enjoy painting birds of prey and the goshawk must be king. I started with photos I took on my trip to the Czech Republic, she’s a rescued bird which flies completely free – no jesses.
I usually give my canvas some sort of hot coloured wash, it means I don’t have to fight the blank white of a new canvas, In this instance I started with a fair chunk of the background then started on the bird.

It’s important to follow the markings very closely, if it’s not right it’s …but we don’t mention that word!

A fiddly job but worth the hours

Getting there,

The feet are quite tricky, goshawks have very long toes!

-and claws

Background in and signed, then it’s off to the printer, then the framer then away to a new home. – this one is sold but needless to say the prints have arrived and the print is here

I’d been trying to get the lesser grebes diving, just that perfect shot with the tip of the beak touching the water, failed attempts too many to count, blink and you miss it, but here’s why, the next three photos were taken at one sixteenth of a second intervals, not much time to sort that out, the first shot shows there’s no clue it going to dive, then gone.

You could spend a long time failing to get thet shot, you see, it has to be from the side, with a prfect refection too. I fear it may never happen.

On another subject, Does anybody know why this grey heron sprayed water from it’s beak? It did it many times, it didn’t have a fish or seem to be going for one,

Dab chick is a popular name for these pretty little birds. the lesser grebe, they are usually very shy but these allowed me to get close, a good opportunity to try for a diving shot which, it turns out, is not as easy as it sounds, they’re very fast and give almost no warning that they’re going to go underwater.
A good view of it’s feet?
A circular bird?

The trick is…well I haven’t found it yet, but I’ll go afer them again, that perfect shot is yet to happen, perhaps next time.

It would be so difficult to describe my experience in India so I’ll just just try to give a snapshot, the people are a delight, so kind and friendly and able to send their kids to school immaculately dressed from houses with no running water or washing machines or electric irons, The air and roads are so dusty and hot with cars and cows, lorries, motor bikes, pony carts, goats, dogs, tuk tuks and buses all sharing the same space. Somehow it just works. Leaving me unable to cross the road without a guide.

The hunt for tigers began at Pench National Park, starting out at dawn, piled into jeeps we set out, The spooted deer keep company with the languar monkeys probably to give alarm when a tiger is near.

With guides who are so focused on getting close to the tigers taking time out to photograph the birds is a little ticky,

A golden oriole

Goar, a massive animal

crowned eagle

But no tigers, Bandhavgarh was the last hope,
Then on the first drive into the park

On a nearby beach, in a high sand cliff, tiny sandmartins nest,
They really are small birds, you can see the scale from the fly lower in this photo.
The cliff is so friable this sometimes happens, a chick had fallen out of the nest, I had no idea which nest it came from and there was no way to reach the fifteen feet or so up the cliff – with herring gulls closing in there was only one thing to do, so I picked the tiny mite up and took it home.
All the rescue centres were closed, it was 6.00 on a Saturday, so we were in the chair.
After a reluctant start it took cat food (always a good standby)from a small paintbrush and we were able to keep it going untill the wonderful Mousehole Bird Sanctuary took it over for us, A happy ending I think.